Konica Hexanon AR 50mm f1.7 – Legacy 50mm. Which one is the best? Part 7

In 1973, Konica released Hexanon AR 50 f1.7 as a standard kit lens to their new Autoreflex T3 camera. Later on, the lens becomes praised to be one of the sharpest lenses ever built. I am not sure if that is valid any more, but it is certainly sharp lens as you would be able to see here.
Lens has 6 elements in 5 groups and aperture has 6 blades. Build quality is very good, with rubberized focus ring. Rest of the lens is light metal and glass.
Earliest versions of this lens weighted 240gr and were 45mm long, while later ones including tested one ended up with 210gr. and 40mm length. The price for smaller size and weight was paid by increasing minimum focus distance from 45cm (earliest versions) to 55cm (this version) and also half click aperture stops were thrown.
You can still set intermediate aperture on this lens, but you need more careful handling.
One of the most common Konica lenses was replaced in 1979 by a pancake 40 f1.8.
Later on, there were also 50mm f1.8, but none of those got the same reputation for optical performance as 50mm f1.7.Lens and camera:

Following test shows lens character, color, contrast and out of focus rendition at most apertures. Focusing was at the focus target next to the doll in front. That should be aligned with the dolls right eye in terms of focus plane. Shot from tripod with remote, ISO 100, NEX 7, RAW developed in LR 3.6 with standard settings, exported for downsizing in Photoshop. No other corrections applied.

Sony NEX 7 + Konica Hexanon AR 50mm f1.7 at f1.7

Sony NEX 7 + Konica Hexanon AR 50mm f1.7 at f2.8

Sony NEX 7 + Konica Hexanon AR 50mm f1.7 at f5.6

Sony NEX 7 + Konica Hexanon AR 50mm f1.7 at f8

Sony NEX 7 + Konica Hexanon AR 50mm f1.7 at f11

Sony NEX 7 + Konica Hexanon AR 50mm f1.7 at f16

Here are 100% crops of the focus plane area. You should click on the picture and choose show image and then zoom in to see the original size.

As noticed above, aperture was natively possible to set only at f1.7 and 2.8, so I didn’t test it for f2. You can see, that right from f1.7, lens is very sharp. Its sharpness peak is around f5.6 and lens manage diffraction pretty well up to its maximum aperture of f16.

Resolution chart is shown bellow with respectful 100 crops.

Corner performance is good, but wide open it stays behind its faster brother AR 50mm f1.4. This can be due to the sample variations, or simply age of the copy. From 2.8 corner sharpness is greatly improved, and at 5.6 overall sharpness is simply exceptional.

At longer distances, you can also notice slightly worse performance than Konica Hexanon AR 50mm f1.4 wide open in the corners, but vignetting seems to be controlled very well. Light fall is minimal and only yellowish cast makes it more pronounced.

There is nothing to worry in terms of distortion.

Here are couple of portraits in a natural light without flash.

Sony NEX 7 + Konica Hexanon AR 50mm f1.7 at f1.7

Sony NEX 7 + Konica Hexanon AR 50mm f1.7 at f2.8

Neutral, rather cold colors are very similar to Konica Hexanon 50mm f1.4 as well as good contrast even wide open.

As you can see, center sharpness is great even wide open and at f2.8 there is nothing more to be desired.

Bokeh
Out of focus areas are a bit more nervous than with Konica Hexanon AR 50 F1.4 but still very pleasing.

Sony NEX 7 + Konica Hexanon AR 50mm f1.7 at f1.7

Sony NEX 7 + Konica Hexanon AR 50mm f1.7 at f4

Sharpness of the lens is outstanding and therefore it is a great lens for landscape as well.

Sony NEX 7 + Konica Hexanon 50mm AR f1.7 at f5.6

Sony NEX 7 + Konica Hexanon 50mm AR f1.7 at f8

Conclusion:
Both Konica Hexanon lenses are great performers. Outstanding sharpness, together with lack of CA, neutral color rendition, very good contrast and pleasant bokeh, makes them hot candidates for the best legacy 50mm lenses. Between the two, I would personally choose faster one, because the price difference is rather small, and one extra stop, as well as half click stops of the aperture and shorter minimum focusing distance makes more attractive in my eyes. However with f1.7 you get smaller and better balanced body on Sony NEX which for some, could be a deal breaker.

you can’t see f-stop on the camera, because there is no communication between the lens and camera. However, you can still shot successfully in any creative mode (A,P,M and S), where you can leave on camera, to calculate proper exposure.

A mode is same as P mode
S mode is same as M mode

Example: You want to shot in A mode

Put your camera in A mode, and let it calculate your shutter speed (Set ISO to any particular value).

Change the aperture on the lens (take a look at the aperture ring – that’s where you will see selected f-stop) and camera will change shutter speed accordingly.

If for any reason you find images to be under or over exposed, just use EV compensation. Keep watching shutter speed though, if it drops bellow reasonable value, you can increase ISO to compensate. I am not suggesting to use A (or P) mode with manual apertures lenses without electronics, with cameras which doesn’t allow to set the minimum shutter speed, such as A7MII. Instead I suggest using S (or M) mode…

To shot in S (or M) mode, set the camera to S mode, set desired aperture on the lens and set ISO to Auto. You can set the limit for high ISO if you wish.

In this settings, you will control shutter speed on the camera and camera will control ISO to ensure proper exposure. (e.g. – you are using this Konica 50mm lens, and you want to shot slow moving or static subjects, set the shutter speed to 1/125s and aperture at f/5.6) Camera will now shift the ISO value to ensure proper exposure and unless you hit ISO limits on either side, you can just point and shot without thinking much about settings…

I am not sure why you can’t magnify focus area, it should be easily doable. Be sure that

1. You enable “Release w/o Lens” setting in the “General settings menu” (second icon from the left – wheel), page 4, second option from the top
2. Check your Custom Key settings (same menu but page 6, third option from above). You need to properly assign one of the customizable buttons for “Focus Magnifier” option. I am using custom button 1 (C1)
3. I am not using peaking but it shouldn’t make any difference for focus magnifier. You can’t magnify view using control wheel center button though, unless it is set for this function explicitly.

If you mean that you can’t see focus peaking in magnified view, well this can be caused by lens low contrast. In general, focus peaking is much less visible at maximum magnification, especially with old legacy lenses.

I have Hexanon 40mm 1.8 and this lens can be at start very discouraging, because when I first time test it, it was very soft and with other problems at 1.8, But closing to 2.8 and up, this lens is amazing and have great detail and tones. I’m not sure I should buy Hexanon 50mm 1.7 for my aps-c X-E1, little fl difference, but I’m fan of Hexanons for sure.

Hi Andriy,
It is not a matter of lens mount, crop factor applies to any lens. Focal length is propriety of the lens and it is always same, no matter how big sensor is behond. What is affected is size of the crop. If you want 50mm field of view as on full frame, you shoul look at lenses in the 30-35mm range. For yours A6000 I would first try Sigma 30/2.8 (cheap build quality but very sharp). If you want manual focus lens, Konica has nice 35/2.8 and 35/2 but both are rather expensive (not many produced), or look at the Canon FDn 35/2.8 or 35/2 which have very good IQ and affordable price.
Cheers,
Viktor

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